Carnival Conquest

Overall Member Rating

Carnival Conquest for Christmas

Sail Date:
December 2012
Destination:
Western Caribbean
Embarkation:
New Orleans

This is our 7Th Carnival cruise and we decided to book for Christmas. A bit different as usually we are "off season" cruisers. We went with the Conquest to check out the "2.0" upgrades, which didn't disappoint. I'm a good news person so here goes, the shows were shorter and available twice throughout the sailing..that was great because you could plan other stuff do to and still catch shows later. LOVED the Alchemy bar, great drinks on the menu, plus the bartenders made things not on them that were really outstanding. Can't wait for that to hit all the ships! Loved Guys burger, lines moved really well thru there, the Blue Iguana lines were slower because they made the tortillas right then. We always enjoy dining options on Carnival and this time was no different. I liked the pizza set up better, seemed faster to me, never waited over 10min for pizza. one of the best things about Carnival is just how friendly the employees are. I like being greeted by my name and it gave me incentive to More
remember the names of folks we dealt with directly.

on Christmas the YTD was backed up and I really liked seeing the Maitre D step in and help bus and re-set up tables... everyone worked really hard to make sure that things ran smoothly.

We booked our room on the panorama deck and if you've got a choice to do that, I'd highly recommend it--only one set of elevators and your only 1 set of stairs down to the Lido deck. it's quiet too, you can't hear any of the music from the Lido! we booked it all over the ship from our room and never had any issues getting the stairs or elevators. gonna go with a resounding "thumbs up" for the Conquest. Less

Port and Shore Excursions

Cozumel is chock full of great things to do! It's my fave port on this itinerary. You can walk around the little shopping area right there or take a taxi into town and shop there, as we'd gotten a severe cold we just walked around and shopped some. Most excursions you can safely book a less expensive version yourself EXCEPT the tulum ruins, that's a long day and if you do go through the cruise line, they have to wait for you, unlike booking on your own. this is 2 cruises in a row our ship didn't leave anyone... Cozumel is the best for watching late comers scramble to get to ship!
We've done the parasailing, beaches, the antlantis submarine and shopping at this port.

many times at this port as well, we just waited out the crowds to tender and only waited in line bout 10min to get one to land. If you're doing an excursion try to get a tender ticket and be first off, otherwise just wait, no lines and you can hop the tender boat and zip right to town=-) Grand Cayman is very easy to walk around, and there's a lot of opportunities to do your own island tours, instead of using cruise ships excursions, it's a lot cheaper to book your own.
Highly recommend the Sting Rays! Or if that's not really your thing, take a tour of the island and visit the turtles and "hell" you can mail a letter from there too. Things are a bit expensive there, so souvenirs and such will cost more.

We've been to "Mo' bay" several times. The minus on this time was that since the Magic is a bigger ship it got the mooring close to the pier whilst the Conquest moored in the industrial area. we had to wait for buses to shuttle us to the main part..which was a terrible mess, no organisation and people were unhappy and fairly rude. If you end up over on the industrial side be prepared for a long time waiting on a shuttle. best idea if you don't have an excursion, watch for all the lines to go down THEN get off ship and catch shuttle=-)